


Spin Again if Not in the Lead

by ForASecondThereWedWon



Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [28]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: (sorta) - Freeform, Board Games, F/M, First Time, Ned Leeds is tired of your shit, Prompt Fic, Road Trips, Tumblr Prompt, a peg-man and a runaway bride go on a grand adventure, sex: in theory and in practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:35:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24844687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForASecondThereWedWon/pseuds/ForASecondThereWedWon
Summary: According to the game's original slogan, “You will learn about life when you play The Game of Life.”According to MJ, you'll learn about capitalism, aardvark care, and how to go on the road trip of a lifetime without leaving your boyfriend's apartment.
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Series: Spidey-shots, Spidey-shots, now they're done, thanks a lot <3 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1368034
Comments: 53
Kudos: 122
Collections: Spideychelle Week 2020





	Spin Again if Not in the Lead

**Author's Note:**

> Created for Day 1 of Spideychelle Week 2020!
> 
> Today's prompt: Road Trip

“One, two, three, _four_ ,” MJ counts out defiantly, her plastic car clicking more with every space she taps it against before coming to rest beside the chapel. She glares at Peter and Ned expectantly. They must hate playing board games with her, she assumes―Life in particular―but they keep inviting her, and she keeps saying yes.

“Since you landed there anyway…” Ned begins to point out.

“I stopped because that’s how many moves the spinner gave me, not because I’m obeying that stop sign.”

“All you have to do is add another little plastic thingy to your car!”

“I don’t _have_ to do anything.”

“You had to stop,” Ned argues while Peter remains anxiously silent.

“The fact that the game makes you _stop_ _your life_ for marriage only demonstrates the inherent evil of the institution. Look how little time I got to be in college,” MJ says, gesturing to the short opening stretch of the board. “How about I just go back to the start and get another degree instead?”

“You’re supposed to get married here. It’s one of the milestones in the game. Job, marriage, house,” Ned lists. “That’s Life.”

His last remark was a little on the nose, MJ thinks, but it still makes her mad.

“I am not picking a spouse out of that plastic baggie. What does the spouse even contribute in this game? They don’t chip in on the house or make auto insurance payments. They don’t even have a job!”

“Children―”

“Don’t need a spouse for that,” she counters.

“―and companionship.”

“If the game was about companionship, you’d be paired up with another player, not a tiny peg-shaped piece of plastic.”

“It’s _pretend_ ,” Ned insists. “If I pull Athlete for the career card, I’m not going to make a big deal about being too short to be a professional basketball player.”

MJ has a retort ready for that too, except Peter finally decides to intervene. It’s not with words, not at first, but with the vibrating whirl of the spinner as he takes his turn. He stops his car next to hers, though his spin allows him to move five more spaces. God. She rolls her eyes, assuming he’s braking for marriage. Though they’re good friends, pretty much best friends anymore, she sometimes feels like Peter doesn’t hear a single word she says.

(Fine, they’re dating, but it’s early days. She doesn’t want one game of Life to send it all tumbling down.)

“Get in,” he says and she glances sideways at him in confusion.

“What?”

“Take your person out of your car and put her in mine.”

“You’re solving this by making me get married to _you_?” She’s only blushing because she’s angry. These infuriating nerds. “That takes away the only control I have in this game―getting to drive my own car.”

“You can drive,” Peter offers, moving his blue peg-man to the passenger’s seat. “I don’t care.”

When he looks from his car to her face, she has her narrowed eyes ready for him.

“What are you doing, Parker?”

“Getting you out of here. Let’s say your peg is a runaway bride who’s changed her mind about the wedding and mine is a friend who stops to pick her up because the chapel’s on his way.”

Ok, she might be smiling a little.

“Hurry up,” he urges, “I still have five spaces to go before Ned can spin.”

“What if your peg-man is a kidnapper?”

“You think he has the kind of car a kidnapper would want? It’s bright yellow. Pretty conspicuous. Anyway, he’s not a kidnapper, he’s your friend from college. You’ve kept in touch and frequently debate the merits of going back to get a second degree.”

This gets a full-on snort of laughter out of her.

“Also,” Ned offers, “he probably understands enough about your character to realize you would never be happy getting married so young, but also knows how independent you are and that you had to make that decision for yourself without his input.”

“That’s a lot of backstory for Life,” she comments, looking from Ned to Peter.

“Yeah, well, right now our rich imaginations are depriving you of what I’m sure would’ve been a lovely wedding… I mean…” Ned corrects when MJ notices his best friend giving him a look. “…are giving you an excuse to break the established rules of the game.”

“Companionship?” Peter offers with a smile. “And maybe the board isn’t even our plastic people’s whole life―” Ned is ready to ram the instruction sheet into their faces at this, she can tell. “―maybe it’s just a road trip.”

“I could do a road trip,” MJ says, fitting her peg-person into the driver’s seat of Peter’s yellow car.

“Awesome. I warmed up the seat for you.”

“Gross. Don’t make me drive away while you’re in the bathroom at the next truck stop.”

“There are no truck stops in this game!” Ned protests. “There aren’t even trucks!”

“I think I hear your plastic wife reminding you to take your blood pressure medication,” she informs him flatly.

Peter advances their car the remaining spaces and their road trip is officially underway. They keep the order of their turns the same, which should mean that Peter and MJ’s car finishes the game while Ned’s only halfway through, except arguments crop up and their friend takes his turn in the meantime. They argue over picking a house (Peter favours the white picket fence while she insists, with their pooled salaries, that they should go for the biggest, most extravagant house, because why not?), which route to take at forks, and if they should buy a stock card. The baby spaces are the trickiest. Her face feels hot again and neither she nor her road trip buddy are making much effort to meet each other’s eye.

“Is this still a road trip?” Ned checks in, comfortably ahead of them with his plastic wife, two kids, and a dog. “You guys own a house together now.”

MJ finally darts a look at Peter.

“We’ll just say it’s a pet instead of a baby.”

Of course, then they argue about what kind of pet they adopted. She feels foolish and uncreative for suggesting a budgie when, with the height of the ceilings in their mansion, Peter says they could very reasonably keep a giraffe. Their compromise is, somehow, an aardvark. The aardvark gets make-believe packed into a make-believe aardvark carrier and they continue the road trip. The tranquility of their household only lasts until the next baby space. They pick up another pet. They hit another baby space. It’s a fucking minefield, MJ thinks, and she wants to call up the inventor of Life and have a serious talk with him (clearly a man) about his agenda. There should be more natural disasters (she and Peter have home and automobile insurance, so they’re not worried) and fewer trips to the maternity ward.

By the fourth baby space, she’s annoyed and having less fun debating the pet they should adopt in place of human offspring.

“This might be crazy,” Ned says sarcastically, “but you guys could just have a baby together this time.”

Peter makes a weird noise and MJ’s too flustered to look at him. Her companion recovers himself.

“We can’t take a newborn baby on a road trip,” he asserts. “Somebody would have to stay home with them.”

“I’m not staying home,” she says quickly.

All power to stay-at-home moms, but she doesn’t think she’d want to be one. Not that reality matters, obviously, because this is just a dumb board game pushing conformity.

“You idiots brought an aardvark!” Ned blurts. “I’m pretty sure you can handle a baby!”

“Fine,” MJ snaps. She can’t help it. Something about her friend’s words made it seem like a challenge. “Parker, you’re on baby duty.”

“What? I don’t know how to take care of a baby.”

She shrugs.

“Figure it out. I’m driving.”

“Then I’ll drive for a while and you can be on baby duty,” he counters.

“No way! Letting me drive was part of the deal!”

“The deal has evolved! We’re parents now! We need to redistribute our responsibilities!”

“Peter Parker,” MJ hisses, “I will turn this car around and go back to the chapel where I left _my_ car.”

“Then who’s going to look after the baby while I’m driving? Our aardvark? Besides, you can’t start from way back there this far into the game. You’ll never catch up.”

“Oh yeah? I’ll lap you! Just watch!”

“And you just go flying by while I’m busy being a single parent? That’s not fair.”

“I’ll pay for private school,” she negotiates. “And flu shots and stuff, if you land on those spaces.”

He sighs.

“Maybe we shouldn’t do it. This baby is really complicating our lives and they’re not even in the car yet.”

The two of them contemplate the board.

“JUST HAVE SEX!” Ned yells.

Startled, MJ looks up at her friend.

“Uh,” he backtracks, “I mean, to have the baby. You can totally have a baby on a road trip.”

She doesn’t know about Peter, but she’s kinda doubting that Ned is _that_ frustrated about them arguing over sticking a plastic baby in their car. He needs to say something to take that back and make the atmosphere normal again, not like it is now, with MJ practically jumping when Peter’s foot brushes hers. Unfortunately, Ned stands instead of fixing this awkward mess of emotions he’s created.

“Where are you going?” she demands.

“I’m _done_.”

This seems like more drama―like Ned’s done with them and their baby debate―until he points at where the looping Life highway ends. His car’s parked at the less luxurious retirement home; with Peter and MJ combining their salaries, Ned has no hope of winning the game, since it all comes down to how much money you have. Capitalism, MJ thinks scornfully. Capitalism and a dozen baby spaces.

“Oh.”

“You guys finish,” Ned encourages before MJ thinks to tell Peter to just end it there and pack the game up. “You’re like three-quarters of the way through.”

“If you want to,” she hears herself saying to Peter as she casts an uncertain glance his way.

“Ok. If you do.”

Ned chuckles.

“Alright, you two. Enjoy your road trip.”

It’s a little awkward when he’s gone, awkward and quiet. Peter jumps up from where they’re stretched out on the floor and puts on a road trip playlist. MJ doesn’t stir up an argument over the music; there’s enough tension just with them being alone. Ned was supposed to stay later. There were supposed to be more games and then a marathon of the _Jaws_ movies, ordered by how many people get eaten. That’s what the three of them agreed on and what MJ knows May is expecting. May, who Peter said (with extreme discomfort) told him not to wait up for her because she’s out with Happy. That little announcement of his, made so offhandedly an hour ago, now drapes the room that only the two of them occupy, heavy with new meaning in Ned’s absence. They’re alone and Peter’s just put on Bruce Springsteen.

With unspoken agreement, MJ flicks the spinner and Peter moves their car―they pretend like they never landed on that baby space. They don’t need that right now, trying to get out from under the feeling of having the apartment to themselves and the knowledge that the only thing that’s put the brakes on the making out they’ve done so far in their relationship has been the arrival of other people. They lie to themselves that it’s still just a road trip for their two plastic people (never mind the combined salaries and the shared mansion and the joint custody of an array of exotic animals) and still just a board game for them (never mind the way Peter’s looking over at her and the way MJ keeps looking back to check if he’s looking).

They survive “Born to Run” and are startled into concentration by “Highway to Hell” and landing on the square that forces them to change careers. A couple of forgettable road trip songs follow those, and then “Drive My Car” comes on. MJ’s never thought of the Beatles as the creators of a soundtrack for seduction, so why does this song suddenly have such a sexy lilt to it? Why is every line a double entendre? Why do she and Peter both reach to move their car at the same moment and end up overturning it (R.I.P.) as their fingers intertwine?

She’s about to say how dumb that is, how cliché, when his hand tightens around hers and he jerks her forward. Forget their car―she just took out an entire plastic mountain range with her knee and she’ll probably have a bruise later. She can’t check at the moment because her eyes are fixed on Peter’s, but only sort of, since his face is too close to look at properly. So MJ doesn’t look. Her breathing is quick and somehow the seconds are slow, the press of his nose into her cheek should be clumsy and embarrassing; instead, it’s gradual and sweet. Peter exhales through his mouth and she feels his air on her lips. As she tries to watch and not watch, her eyelashes flutter like crazy, and it’s finally his trembling grasp on the back of her neck that sinks her deep into the moment, which is when he tilts his face just enough to touch his lips to hers.

MJ sucks in―at least half of it has to be his used oxygen and maybe that’s what makes her a little dizzy―and chases her hormones forward. They lead her hands to Peter’s shoulders and send her scrambling into the lap he quickly constructs for her, rearranging his limbs and scattering colourful Life currency with a careless swipe of his foot. She ends up on her knees with both hands cupping his face. She hasn’t quite managed to straddle him properly, like women do so effortlessly in the movie scenes they both blush over and pretend to not really watch when they’re together. Rather than being centered over him, she’s straddling just one of his legs, but she’s too self-aware to want to move, terrified that Peter will realize she’s screwed up this attempt to bring them closer. It was supposed to be _sexy_. She was supposed to instinctively know _how_.

Maybe he thinks he can fix it, or maybe he has his own reasons for repositioning them. Either way, he shifts the leg she’s straddling and it rubs between hers. She doesn’t know what song’s playing now, just that it isn’t playing loud enough to cover the way she breathes in―rough, short, unpolished. _Move your thigh, Peter_ , she thinks. She can’t say it out loud because if she said it out loud it would be a snapped command, a chastisement, a rejection. What MJ wants is for it to be an invitation. Even though their mouths break apart, there isn’t anything she wants to say. The nice thing, the right thing, is the sound of their lips parting. It’s good, though not cartoonish, not scripted like a board game. It’s a sound that makes her want more, but she waits for Peter to initiate this time.

She expects his mouth; she gets his hands. They slide up her back, softly, bunching her t-shirt without seeming to try to deliberately undress her. Only once her back is securely in his hands does Peter’s face come impossibly close to hers again. But he doesn’t kiss her. His cheek just rests against hers while his palms warm and rub her back. Abruptly, he raises his thigh again and MJ―willpower departed to parts unknown―rocks shallowly in response.

“We kinda messed up the game board,” he says quietly.

“Your Life is ruined,” she agrees and it’s funny, but neither of them laughs. The skim of his cheek across hers is making her heart race.

“Would you…” His voice runs dry. With a little grunted clearing that’s enough to liquify this desire between her legs, he gives it another shot: “Would you want to, uh, see some stuff in my room? My bedroom. With me.”

“Sweet,” MJ agrees. Her tone is high and flighty, a hot air balloon with its lines loosed. “Road trip.”

They glance at each other constantly over the course of their very short trip. From the second MJ stands, Peter holds her hand securely in his, snatched from where it hung at her side. This is so moronic; she’s been in his room before. When Ned was there too. And May was home. And they weren’t dating yet. Quickly, she gives up on trying to think of this as the same as those other times, because it’s not. There’s not much interesting in this room that MJ hasn’t seen―just what Peter looks like without his clothes on.

With bravado, MJ marches all the way into his bedroom, straight to the opposite wall, where she looks out the window. Can’t go any farther. It’s like the stop signs on the board game.

“We don’t _have_ to do anyth―” Peter seems to swallow his tongue when she faces him and whips her shirt off over her head. “Anything,” he chokes out.

“I wanna go forward,” she asserts defiantly, though she’s not sure who she’s defying, since her boyfriend’s eyes on her bra hint that he’s probably ok with this. His gaze rises to her face.

“So do I.”

“Good,” MJ says with a little twitch of her head.

Peter yanks his shirt off and, clenching and unclenching his hands like he’s psyching himself up, approaches her. Rather than sweeping her feet out from under her, he holds her hand again and brings her over to his bed.

Sitting cross-legged on his drawn-back sheets as they start kissing, MJ finds they do go forward. She keeps her hands to herself until she can’t help it and puts her palms on his knees. His fingers trace her waist before he’s bold enough to grip her more securely. It can’t take more than five minutes for her to shuffle closer and him to draw her in with eager hands. Like playing Life, they have small moves (the first time MJ runs a hand down his bare chest) and big ones (when Peter rolls on top of her), double turns if you’re not in the lead (somehow she’s naked first and retaliates by removing his jeans and boxers together) and spaces that pull you up short (the long pause while he hovers over her, right after he asks if he should get a condom). Like riding in a car down a highway on a hot summer day, it’s exhilarating and exhausting, sweaty and satisfying. They lie side by side on their backs, breathing hard, and MJ thinks they’re definitely someplace different from where they started.

She wonders what she’ll say if Ned texts to ask who won.


End file.
